N. Raghuraman's column: Electricity; a service or a license to know?

Even before Diwali lamps illuminate our homes and streets, the decorative lights on shops, markets and buildings have started to shine across the country. Colorful lights announce the arrival of this 'Festival of Light' even before the festival. The credit for this magic goes to electricity. But did we become so accustomed to this wonderful service that we even forgot how dangerous it can be if used carelessly? Two recent incidents forced me to ask this question. Two foreign nationals died and two others were injured after a suspected electric current in the swimming pool of a five-star hotel in Bengaluru. Reportedly, a person screamed as soon as he landed in the pool. The other person who came to save him also got electrocuted. The pool attendant and a guest who came to help also suffered shocks. The resting place suddenly became a place of death. In another incident, two 20-year-old engineering students died after being hit by an illegal electric fence around a paddy field near Hyderabad. The farmer had installed these wires to protect the crop from wild boars. The two youths were in a group celebrating their birthday and allegedly ran into the field after seeing a police patrolling vehicle. The circumstances of these two tragedies are different. But one thing was the same — electricity, or the way that humans have started using it. How can a hotel that charges Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 per room and welcomes hundreds of guests leave its pool vulnerable to currents? Who checks the electrical-safety of such places and how often? Shouldn't there be periodic electrical-safety audits like fire-safety inspections? The second incident raises more difficult questions. How can a person put a bare electric wire around a farm when he knows that touching it can kill anyone? Does saving crops from animals mean getting a license to build such a deadly boundary? Who approves it and who ensures that the electricity given for farming is not misused? We must also ask ourselves a question. We have taken away our homes, roads, industries, forests, pastures and natural habitats for farms. Once free-roaming animals are entering the fields in search of food. After taking their lands for our survival, do we now believe that we have the right to kill them when they return to their old habitat? And see where this thinking is taking us. The wire used to kill wild boars killed our own children. The tragedy is that these wires cannot distinguish between an animal that destroys crops and a human who accidentally touches it. Perhaps it is time to look beyond isolated incidents to see how electricity is being supplied and used. Shouldn't there be a clear legal framework for this, with accountability for permissible uses, mandatory safety devices, inspections and misuses? Electricity boards, local bodies, agriculture departments and building regulators will have to work together. Illegal fencing of electricity should not be considered as normal farming practice. Electrical-safety management of a hotel pool cannot be left on the assurance of electricity. We have regulatory laws for water, roads, firecrackers and hazardous substances, so why should electricity that can kill someone in an instant be used so carelessly as soon as it goes out of the power company's meter? The trick is that electricity is a service that we pay for. It is not a license to endanger anyone's life. Before another swimming pool, a field, or an innocent victim becomes a victim, shouldn't we learn to respect the power we have learned to control?